KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 13

The agitating transport workers have backtracked from their gentleman's agreement with the government and announced today that they would halt public transport services indefinitely from Tuesday.

Issuing a statement today, three transport workers' associations - Nepal Transport Independent Workers' Organisation, All Nepal Transport Workers' Union, and Nepal Transport Workers' Union - announced they were jointly launching a strike and that no public transportation would ply within the Kathmandu valley from tomorrow.

According to the statement, they will continue their protest until their 10-point demands are fulfilled. They have also demanded immediate action against all those who attacked workers gathered at the New Bus Park in Gongabu today.

'During the gathering at the New Bus Park as per our pre-scheduled programme to announce the outcome of Sunday's discussion and publicise the programmes of nationwide movement from February 15, the workers were attacked by a group of about 30 people, including Sunil Kunwar, the general manager of the new bus park contractor company Lotse Multinational Pvt,' the statement reads.

Putting forth various demands, including scrapping of minimum traffic fine of Rs 1,500 and licence suspension, as well as amendment to the Vehicle and Transport Management Act 1993, the three transport workers' unions had submitted a memo with 10-point demands to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (MoPIT) on January 31.

In the meeting held on Sunday, the ministry said it would form a committee under the leadership of MoPIT Secretary Keshav Prasad Sharma to look into demands of unions and take necessary action by February 20.Sunil Shrestha, senior division engineer at MoPIT, said he was unaware about transport workers' strike. 'If it's true, it's against the verbal understanding reached at Sunday's meeting that they would not take any action till February 20.'

Representatives of agitating unions could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, transport entrepreneurs also seem unhappy with the course of action transport workers have taken.

According to Bijay Bahadur Swar, president of the Federation of Nepalese National Transport Entrepreneurs, agitating transport workers should refrain from resorting to vandalism to have their concerns addressed.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 14, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.